Twittelator Pro 3.0 is a full-featured Twitter client for the iPhone and iPod touch. It's an amazing iPhone app, and if you haven't started using Twitter yet, this app is so cool, you'll want to start. Version 3 requires iPhone OS 3.0 and has some special features, like tweet links to videos which are supported on the iPhone 3GS.

I've been using TwitterFon on the iPhone because I send most of my tweets from a Mac (Syrinx) during working hours. TwitterFon is free, and I figured a free app was good enough, considering how seldom I tweet from my iPhone. Twittelator Pro 3.0 (TP3) has changed all that. TP3 is so much fun that I may end up sending a lot more tweets from the iPhone. Of course, this means I'll also have to review TwitterFon Pro, the big brother app that has the same price as TP3: US$4.99.

It's also been a pleasant task deciding which screen shots to show because there are so many nice options and screens. For starters, I'll just refer you to Stone Design's TP3 page that lists all the features.

While the list above is impressive, one really has to play with the app for awhile to get a feel for the app and get a sense of its design and feel. My own list of features that stuck out includes:

• Great looking timeline
• Lots of user options
• Settings for link shortening services, photo services
• Great composing window
• Photo, audio, video support (Yfrog and Moby for video now, more options later.)
• Pages and pages of emoji, dingbats and smileys
• Alphabetic list of friends in iPhone Address Book style
• Nice array of options for a tweet

In the following, I'm going to let my screen shots tell the story (Except for #2)

1. Timeline. Three different timeline themes, optimized for indoors, outdoors and night. Just double-tap the title bar to go to the top of the time line. A small, low-key flash of light confirms the touch. Double tap text to scroll down.

Timeline

2. Composing Window (From Stone Design). Looks cluttered, but amazingly intuitive. And this image from the documentation leaves nothing to chance.

UI Documentation

3. Clicking on the face of any user brings up the personal details for that user. Also allows for reply or direct message, and, horrors, the lethal "stop following" button.

Info on the Tweeter

4. Options to handle a tweet on a nice grid. Notice the informative icons and text. Copy and paste link available for use with Safari and other apps.

Respond and other options

5. Pages and pages of settings. Everything you could ever define about your Twitter environment. Below is just a section.

Just one section of Settings options

6. Foreign Language, unicode, support -- just one of several shown.

One of many foreign language keyboards

7. Built in Browser for links. Setting for using Safari if desired. The right ascending arrow at top right allows one to e-mail the URL.

Built-in browser

Stability

Even though TP3 is new for iPhone OS 3, and requires, OS 3 (you have upgraded, right?), it's been remarkably stable. No crashes or odd behavior to report.

The Fun Factor

Twittelator Pro is an inviting app. It's so intuitive and well designed that you'll probably never have to check the documentation, listed below. However, if you need it, it's all available, and that's very nice to know.

TP Tips and Hints

TP FAQ

Extensive Online Help

This is more documentation, lots of it very visual, than you ever thought possible for a $5.00 app. One could spend hours and hours in the Online Help -- or just go have fun and muddle through without much effort. Then come back for some details.

Titillatingly Terrific

One of the very nice features, if you have an iPhone 3GS, is the ability to take a video, send a tweet, and Twittelator Pro will do the right thing with the video: for now, upload it to Yfrog, and create a URL in the tweet. This is a technology that, while not unique to TP3, is a disruptive technology, filled with potential for good or mischief.

Multimedia options (transparent to boot)

The only thing extra I could ask for is a real date stamp for each tweet, like Syrinx does "Wed 4:53:28 PM" instead of "12 minutes" ago. Mr. Stone told me at WWDC that he's probably not, to my regret, going to implement that option.

Twittelator Pro 3 has everything you could ever ask for in a Twitter client. But the wealth of features are beautifully integrated into the UI so that one doesn't feel overwhelmed by detail or buried in options. For now, this is my Twitter client of choice on the iPhone.